Acer and other PC makers lower forecasts for second half 2012 PC shipments

While many PC makers saw the coming of Windows 8 as an opportunity for growth and increased competition against Apple, those feelings are slowly fading.

Acer Inc., Quanta Computer Inc. and Compal Electronics Inc., three major PC makers, have all lost hope in Windows 8 being the savior of PC sales for the second half of fiscal year 2012. This opinion differs from those heard by the same PC makers earlier this year, who were happy to show off Windows 8 laptops, all-in-ones and ultrabooks at the Computex trade show in Taipei. Acer even said that Windows 8 PCs would bring growth to his company once again.

But these opinions changed as PC makers see no customer enthusiasm for personal computers running the Windows 8 operating system. Another issue, according to analysts and the PC makers, is that Windows 8 laptops and ultrabooks will likely be much too expensive upon release.

J.T. Wang, CEO of Acer, said he has grown unsure of the Windows 8 ecosystem. His company is lowering its expectations for PC sales upon Windows 8's release.

"Originally, we were expecting very high growth in the second half," said Wang. "We're still waiting for a sign of consumer enthusiasm."

Analysts are changing their sales forecasts as well, mainly due to the fact that some believe it'll take three to four financial quarters for consumers to get onboard with Windows 8. It won't take off right away. Rather, Microsoft will have to seek out developers for more applications in order to grab consumer interest.

Windows 8 has been a pretty controversial topic. The main issue seems to be the user interface, formerly called Metro. It features colorful tiles that represent different applications on the home screen. The change was a hopeful move to attract new users (perhaps those normally enticed by Apple's colorful and friendly-looking operating systems). However, Microsoft is looking to change the name of Metro after a recent discovery -- a German retailer called Metro AG threatened to sue.

He can't even work out how to edit an appointment in the metro calendar app. Ummm, all you have to do is click on it and type into the boody obvious text boxes that appear. Saving is a simply matter of clicking the button that looks like a disk. The button isn't even hidden in any menus.

The worst part - I hadn't even bothered to use the metro calendar app before reading about his problems (I use Outlook for that). It took me all of 30 seconds to work it out - its that obvious how to use it.

Frankly, if that guy is so clueless he couldn't work out how to operate such a simple app, he shouldn't be tech blogging. Perhaps something simpler, like nose-picking, would be more up his street.